25th anniversary of Jonestown massacre

Picture taken in 1978 of 'Temple of people' members' children 
in the nursery of the sect in Guyana. Bodies of more than 900 
members of the sect and their children were discovered after 
they committed mass suicide and murder. AFP PHOTO

Monday, November 17, 2003

GEORGETOWN, Guyana: This Tuesday, Nov. 18, will be the 25th anniversary of the suicides and murders of 913 people in Jonestown, the jungle colony founded by James Warren Jones in Guyana. 

Jones ordered his cult followers to swallow a lethal poison - and to administer the poison to an estimated 300 children. His still-unbelievable decision came in the wake of the ambush murders of California Congressman Leo Ryan, three members of the media, and a Jonestown defector. The killers were followers of Jones. 

Those murders came earlier in the day on Nov. 18 as Ryan and the others prepared to leave Guyana from a crude airstrip near Jonestown. 

Ryan led the delegation to Guyana to investigate complaints from his constituents that their relatives and friends were severely mistreated in Jonestown. 

Jones and his wife were among the more than 900 dead on that day 25 years ago.

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